Category: Wild Animals

WASHINGTON D.C., LANSING, SALT LAKE CITY––Public comment
ended on December 17, 2013 on the latest U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
attempt to remove grey wolves from the U.S. endangered species list as
purportedly fully recovered.
“Wolves across the U.S. will be left to be hunted, trapped,
and even beaten or poisoned––whatever the state which they call home
sees fit,” warned Endangered Species Coalition executive director
Leda Huta.

Washington, D.C. – Fewer than 5% of the visitors
to Denali National Park in Alaska who sought to see wolves in 2013
managed to do so, according to data released by Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility.
In recognition of the exceptional economic value of
wolf viewing in Denali, from 2000 to 2010 the state closed 122 square
miles of lands on the park’s eastern boundary to hunting or
trapping wolves, PEER recounted. In 2010,
when 45% of visitors who tried to see wolves saw some, the
Alaska Board of Game eliminated this no-take wolf buffer. The wolf
population across the six-million-acre park fell from 143 in fall 2007
to just 55 in spring 2013, the fewest wolves known to be in
Denali since 1987.

WASHINGTON D.C.––Did inflated claims about cat predation on
birds give the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service political cover for granting
a 30-year exemption from prosecution to wind power developers whose
turbines kill eagles?
The exemption was announced on December 6, 2013, two weeks to
the day after Duke Energy Renewables agreed to pay $1 million in
settlement of charges resulting from the deaths of 14 golden eagles and
149 other protected birds at wind farms near Casper and Campbell Hill,
Wyoming between 2009 and earlier in 2013.
Wind turbines in the Altamont Pass east of the San Francisco Bay
area in California are believed to kill about 60 bald and golden eagles
per year. Other wind farms around the U.S. are known to have killed at
least 67 eagles since 2008.

LONDON––The British wildlife agency Natural England on
November 29, 2013 revoked a license granted to the Department of
Environment, Food & Rural Affairs to cull 70% of the badgers in two
areas of Gloucestershire and Somerset, to see if the culling might help
to reduce the incidence of bovine tuberculosis.
Badgers as well as cattle are susceptible to bovine TB, and
have long been blamed by farmers for failed efforts to eradicate the
disease from British herds.

WASHINGTON D.C.––Charles M. Monnett, 65, whose observation
of four polar bear carcasses floating in the Beaufort Sea in September
2004 drew global attention to the effects of global warming, on
November 15, 2013 accepted a six-point retirement agreement negotiated
by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel in settlement of a whistleblower
complaint against the U.S. Department of Interior.
Monnett, then a senior scientist for the Bureau of Ocean &
Energy Management, discovered the polar bear remains while doing an
aerial search for endangered bowhead whales with colleague Jeffrey
Gleason, who later left the BOEM. The bears were 125 to 185 miles from
the nearest sea ice. Only 12 polar bears had been observed swimming in
the preceding 25 years of aerial marine mammal surveys, and none had
ever been found dead at sea.

Editorial #2: Time for a new national wild horse policy––covering all wild horses[Photo credit: Kim Bartlett ] Data showing how many horses have been sold to slaughter per year, nationwide, can be extrapolated from readily available public records going all the way back to 1850. Throughout this time, coinciding with the advent of railways that enabled brokers to transport animals long distances to slaughter, the overwhelming majority of horses sold to slaughter have been either those at the end of their working utility to humans, or the unwanted surplus from speculative breeding. Speculative breeding rose rapidly as a source of horses sent to slaughter as employment of horses for transportation declined. Read more

Either pending legislation or ongoing litigation could bring the resumption of horse slaughter within the U.S. for human consumption this winter, or close off the possibility. Which might happen is anyone’s bet. It is even possible that court decisions will allow horse slaughter to resume for a time, only to be again stopped by Congress, as it was in 2007. Read more

ORLANDO, SAN FRANCISCO, TAIJI––Shortlisted for Oscar consideration as “Best Documentary of 2013,” the Gabriela Cowperthwaite exposé of SeaWorld Blackfish between November 28 and December 14, 2013 persuaded all six original headline bands and one of the replacements to withdraw from scheduled performances at the SeaWorld “Bands, Brew & BBQ Fest,” due to begin on February 1, 2014. Read more

When I was a child, the Earth seemed huge and full of exciting places where wild animals roamed, where as yet no human had set foot. There were only three billion of us back then. Feeding us all seemed to be the main problem. Read more

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